Why I Hate You
by Lady Awesomepants
Summary: Why do you hate me, Zim?" Zim ponders the question Dib asks him in their final battle. Rated PG-13 for general darkness and violence. One-Shot. I suck at summaries, just read the damn thing.


WHY I HATE YOU  
  
BY BEX  
  
A/N: I do not own any Invader Zim characters, that Jhonen Vasquez bloke does, lucky bummer. This is another late-night story, made from 12 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Jolly good, read on. Flame if you want, I don't mind much.  
  
"Zim, just tell me before you kill me…Why do you hate me?"  
  
The writhing worm-monkey was twisted with pain, he was living his last moments, breathing his last breaths. And he asked me a question like THAT!? How stupid, how pathetic. But, I suppose, it is the human nature.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?   
  
It's a stupid question, the kind a human would want answered before they go. They hold these "feelings" in high regard, even ones like Dib. They all feel, they all think it's important to feel.   
  
Zim does not feel.   
  
But I do, I do. I hate him. Oh, how I hate him. I hate every little thing about him. His stupid blue shirt, his trench coat, his mop of black fur on his head, his enormous seeing-aides, and his eyes. I cannot stand his eyes.   
  
There would be instances like this one, where we were both in a death match--nothing ever as serious as this one, but one of our many little battles. There would be times when we would look directly into each other's eyes, and whether I was wearing my contacts or not, I saw the truth.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?  
  
The Tallests had told me the truth not long ago. I remember it so well--two months ago, in earth time, they summoned me. The announced what I would never have dreamed.   
  
They did not care about me. They did not send me to this puny planet full of disgusting dirt-babies to conquer it. They sent me here to die. They sent me here to die, and I believed they cared, and they laughed at me. I was too oblivious to see it, to blinded by the want--no, the need--to prove myself.   
  
After the last invasion, I had to prove myself. I was well aware that no one believed in me, and they laughed in my face about it. I paid them no mind. I simply blocked them out. I had to be right.   
  
I was Zim. Zim is always right.   
  
Why do I hate you Dib?  
  
And then the Tallests told me the truth. They laughed and laughed and laughed, and it hurt.   
  
There, another stupid human emotion I've developed. The ability to feel sadness. I suppose I first felt it when Gaz died. It was an accident--I meant to kill Dib. Yes, Dib, I would've loved to watch you die there, when I was still unable to feel. It would have been so much a sweeter victory…  
  
I shot her. Dib was supposed to die, not Gaz. Of course, I hated one worm-baby as much as the next, but I did not want Gaz dead. She had not threatened my mission. She had no interest in it.  
  
  
  
Damn her, she got in my way. Punching away on that stupid Gameslave of hers she was so obsessed with. She was so stupid. She did not even glance up, not even when Dib screamed for her to get out of the way.   
  
At the moment, I did not care if she died or not. I was too consumed by my hatred of Dib and the sweet juices of victory I was so sure I was about to taste. I was blinded, and when the trigger went off, I was still unaware of her presence.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?  
  
And her brown eyes went wide as she fell, and she finally dropped the stupid Gameslave. I remember I was still laughing. All my greed, all my malice, unleashed. None of them ever thought I was dangerous.   
  
Who was laughing now, earthnoids?  
  
She fell slowly, and she looked at me, straight into my eyes, and I laughed on. Down, down, down she went, until she fell to the floor with a sickening thud. I laughed more and more until I thought my insides were going to burst into flames. GIR was staring in awe at Gaz's dead body, just lying there. Cast aside, gone forever.   
  
But I finally stopped laughing when I heard a small sound. I looked about and there was Dib. He clutched his sister's dead body protectively, and wetness traveled from his eyes and into her hair.   
  
Why did I stop laughing?  
  
I felt it--a pang of remorse in my…heart, if Irkens truly have them. It felt like my ribs were being crushed by some demonic force Dib had on his side.   
  
"Gaz…" he had whispered, stroking her head. The salty pools dripped from his eyes to the ground. What was he doing? Was it some sort of healing technique?  
  
I stared at him for a very long time. Then I had turned and simply left him there, with a dead body clutched in his arms. I knew the monkey wouldn't say it was me. He was not stupid. He knew no one would believe him.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?  
  
And when the Tallests told me two months ago why they really had sent me to a planet they did not know existed, I felt it again, and all the malicious laughter was forced out of me. I hated the feeling, the feeling of my ribs being crushed, and I wondered once more if Dib was sending his demons to me. I wondered what sort of thing lived inside me that would make me feel this…  
  
When I pulled my laser on them, I thought it would make the pain go away. Revenge usually tasted to sweet, and it made anything fade away that I did not want stored in my mind. I killed them, both of them, as they laughed at me. Pathetic, stupid Irkens. They called themselves leaders. What were they now?  
  
Dead, destroyed, nothing. Like Gaz.   
  
And I had gone back to Earth, because there was nowhere else for me to go. There was no one in this galaxy who cared for me. No one cared about Zim. There was no sympathy, even, no charity. No one even cared enough to pity me. GIR, even--I doubt that he would stay if I released him from my services. I doubt anyone would stay.   
  
Except for Dib.   
  
In a bitter way, Dib cared. He cared in a way such that he hated me. That is still caring. It is still a feeling. He would stay until one of us was dead. He had told me so numerous times before. Now look at the worm-baby--fourteen now, and still after me and my head.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?  
  
Sickening, sickening feelings, every time I looked into his eyes. Anytime I saw them, haunting brown pools, not only did they remind me of Gaz, but they showed me the Truth I did not want to believe. No one would.   
  
When I looked into Dib's eyes, I saw what I hated. I saw a stupid boy, obsessed with a single idea that would most likely bring the swift hand of Death down on him, which it had. He was hated by everyone around him, including his own family. I saw Dib, and I saw what I hated.   
  
But I also saw a reflection of myself in the brown pools that were his eyes. I saw a stupid, pathetic Irken that was, like Dib, obsessed with a single idea that would most likely case an early death. I saw an Irken no one cared about. He was not hated, but no one cared. And that is worse than being hated. That is worse than death.   
  
Dib had the strength and courage to at least KNOW everyone hated him. I was too blind, too weak to even fathom that no one cared about me. It was I who should have been lying in a pool of blood with a hole through my abdomen, not Dib. Dib was strong. I was weak.   
  
I was nothing.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?  
  
I blinked my eyes at the earth-monkey before me. I kept my expression blank and charged up the laser once more. Dib looked like he was fading--the expression on his face was one of dull pain. He must have felt the cold numbness creeping up him. It starts at your toes, and ends at you heart, and once it hits your heart, you will leave this life and enter the next.   
  
"I do not hate you, Dib," I said, almost in monotone.   
  
He blinked at me, looking utterly confused.   
  
The laser let out a shrill beep, letting me know it was ready. I squeezed the trigger and a beam released from the tip of the gun and penetrated his throat. That sticky, red, warm fluid gushed everywhere. He looked as if he didn't care. I don't think he cared much about anything anymore, even about destroying me. He was out of luck, out of ideas, out of hope.   
  
When you take that from a man, be him human or Irken, he has nothing.   
  
Dib had nothing.  
  
For an instant, he knew what it was like to be me.   
  
And then he was gone.   
  
I blinked at his carcass, his dull expression. His brown eyes that showed me the Truth looked straight up at me. I dropped the laser and wiped the his blood from my face.   
  
Why do I hate you, Dib?  
  
"I do not hate you," I whispered to his lifeless body. "I hate only myself."  
  
END 


End file.
